Japan – Indonesia International Marriage (Part 1)

We decided to get married

What do you think about marriage? By a marriage, it means that we can be together with someone we love, enjoy life and face problems together.

International marriage means a marriage performed by two persons with different nationality. In terms of international marriage, it has many different sides rather than non-international marriage which are particularly challenging, from procedure until lifestyle due to cultural-differences. Of course, me myself needed to face the differences with those own difficulties as well, however, it was completely nothing compared with happiness I felt. I hope this article could be helpful for those who are having interest in international marriage.

Decision to getting marry

I met my husband, which is a Japanese, while I was working in a Japanese company in Indonesia and we started to have had private communication frequently. He started to avoid Haram things after he met me.
I fully understood that we have differences in religion, culture, lifestyle etc, so I thought it might be difficult to move to next step like marriage. Furthermore, husband and I have never thought, even once, to marry foreigner.
I decided to forget about “future” as I wanted to just enjoy “current” moment, but husband had to come back to Japan and I did not have any confidence to long-distance relationship. On the other hand, if we get marry and then move to Japan, I had no confidence in my Japanese and was worried about food, pray space etc.
People surrounding told me that “It’s getting more difficult (to continue the relationship)”. However, husband and I wanted to be together, and with Allah’s blessing, husband and I were courageously moving toward marriage.

Japan and Indonesia has big gap in Islamic matter and lifestyle as well, husband felt worry on me if I could adapt on it after moving to Japan. So I came to Japan twice, to know how does it feel to live in Japan as a Muslim by my own. Back in those days, muslim-friendly service, halal food, halal restaurant was still few so we were relying on checking food ingredients written on the package, but I believe I will definitely can overcome it as I am sure Japan will be more Halal and muslim friendly. Of course, there was also power of love, we ensured our decision to getting marry.

Family’s acceptance

There was no one who have had an international marriage around me, so it was very rare and unfamiliar. Furthermore, Muslim in Japan is minority so my family thought that husband and I will face difficulties in performing Islam, it was hard for them to accept our decision on marriage. But, husband who performed syahadah and converted to Islam by his own will, made my family impressed and accept us. And then, my family found Halal Media Japan site which is regularly informing about halal in Japan so they felt secure and told me “you will be okay (living) in Japan”.
Thanks to family’s blessing, we started to proceed our Japan – Indonesia international marriage.